A new report from a top investment researcher criticizes Microsoft and Intel for talking noisily about tablets, but producing no actual products to date. (Source: PC Magazine)

Pair missed out on a key emerging market by responding too slow

Intel
is vowing to release
35 Atom-core powered tablets next year sporting Windows 7,
Android (Linux), and Meego (Linux); but those promises did little to
stop Goldman Sachs researchers from delivering a scathing review on
the companies' tablets progress.

Reports from Goldman Sachs
often hold a key influence on corporate stock prices, so the report
is troubling to both Microsoft and Intel, which received criticism in
the report.

Analyst Bill Shope praises the progress of ARM
processor makers and leading tablet OS makers Apple (iOS) and Google
(Android). He predicts sales of 54.7 million tablets in 2011
and states, "If this is the case and our tablet forecast is
anywhere near accurate, this would be the first time in three decades
that a non-Wintel technology has made legitimate inroads into
personal computer."

Mr. Shope adds,
"This rush of iPad competitors is not surprising in itself, as
Apple tends to regularly define the direction of the electronic media
and computing industries. What is surprising is that many of
these products are not utilizing Intel microprocessors or a Microsoft
operating environment."

Another Goldman Sachs analyst,
Sarah Friar, points out that Microsoft claimed that it would deliver
tablets by Christmas, but that the "tablet response is still
not forthcoming", having slipped to 2011.

ISuppli, a
separate market research firm recently offered a similar
prediction of 63.5 million tablets shipped in 2011, up from
approximately 13.8 million sold this year.

The
New York Times this
week ran a
report that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was set to announce
new Windows tablets, including a Dell and Samsung model, at CES 2011
in January. The source says that Microsoft may even show a
tablet running Windows 8.

Similarly Intel is trying to turn
around its ship, with the release of its aforementioned 35 tablets on
its "Oak
Trail" (Windows 7, Android, MeeGo) and "Moorestown"
(Android, MeeGo) platforms.

At least iSuppli shows Microsoft a little more
love, commenting, "Even with Microsoft’s stumbles to date in
tablets, iSuppli believes that Microsoft will figure out how to
design a functional tablet operating system."

But the
picture is clear -- these companies must deliver in 2011 or they risk
being reduced to bit players in the next generation of computing.

"The whole principle [of censorship] is wrong. It's like demanding that grown men live on skim milk because the baby can't have steak." -- Robert Heinlein